In Sustainable Living For Dummies, I was asked to provide a sample sustainable living day to show how easy it is to start doing just that - living sustainably. If you can get some of the following sustainable actions into your daily routine somehow, it’ll be just like you’ve lived that way all your life. The more you get them ingrained into your everyday life, the more you are likely to take on additional sustainable actions down the track.

So, here’s the example of how the first day of your new sustainable life might play out. Imagine:

* 7:00 a.m. You get out of bed to have a shower. With your new shower timer, you reduce your shower time from 10 minutes down to 5 minutes.

* 7:15 a.m. For breakfast, you might start eating the new organic oats you got for your cereal and some bread from your local bakery. You also brew yourself some new organic free-trade coffee and wash your breakfast down with some freshly squeezed fruit juice. One thing that you'll notice when you start eating and drinking organic and natural foods is how much better it tastes than the commercial variety you get in supermarkets...you start to remember how food used to taste!

* 7:45 a.m. You walk to work (if you’re living within a reasonable distance in a multi-use type of urban centre) or take the local bus to the nearest train station so that you can catch the express train, which ensures that you’ll get to work on time and with zero stress.

* 9:00 a.m. At work (where ever that might be), you try and use as little paper as possible. That paper you do use is of a recycled variety (and worth checking to see if it is and ask why not if it isn’t). When disposing of paper, you make sure it goes in a recycling bin. You also make sure any lights that don’t need to be on aren’t on, and turn off your computer when you’re away from your desk for any length of time (or set it to go into sleep mode when not used after a certain number of minutes).

* 12:00 p.m. For lunch, you either have some of the food that you brought to the office, prepared the night before and stored in a durable container that can be washed, or you buy an unpackaged lunch, perhaps from a local store that sells organic food or at least natural food sourced and produced locally.

* 5:00 p.m. On your way home from work, drop into the shops to buy yourself some organic veggies and some organic chicken or locally sourced seafood from a sustainable fishery to cook for dinner. If you are a vegetarian, you might source where you can get organic and non-genetically modified tofu for your stir fry.

* 7:00 p.m. Cook your organic chicken or vegetable stir-fry for dinner on your natural gas cook-top, and put any ‘waste’ from the preparation in a separate compost container (for use in your back yard or community garden). After eating, you can wash up all the heavy pans and dishes in the sink with biodegradable detergent. The remaining plates, cups and saucers (especially if you have enough family members to generate a lot of these) can be washed in your energy-efficient 5-star dishwasher with biodegradable dishwashing detergent when the machine is full.

* 8:00 p.m. You watch a little TV or listen to some music on your energy-star appliances. Or turn off the electric devices and play an old-fashioned, non-electronic game with the children.

* 10:00 p.m. Before going to bed, you make sure that all the lights and electrical appliances are turned off - at the wall. You open a screened window or two for cross-ventilation and a light, fresh breeze.

* 10:30 a.m. Once under your organic cotton sheets and comforter, you doze off to sleep knowing you have done your daily bit for the planet and your local community.

There you go - simple tasks that can make a big difference.

Authored by Michael Grosvenor